2011 has been a transitionary year for information governance and eDiscovery.  Enterprises and governments worldwide have had to come to grips with the sudden acceleration of the use of social media, cloud computing, mobile devices and the resulting explosion in the volume of Electronically Stored Information (ESI).

Some are predicting the end of email in favor ot texting, Twitter and other social media electronic communications.  There are over 100 million users on Twitter each day with 35% utilizing a mobile device.  Facebook now has over 800 million users with 74% outside the United States and 350 million on mobile devices.  There are also over 100 million LinkedIn users worldwide as business social media and the assocication collaboration and communications is now required as a fundamental marketing tool for any serious business player.  Click Here for a more detailed graphic overview of the the growth of social media from the Search Engine Journal.

In addition to social meida, the fundamental infrastructure matured in 2011 to support more serious cloud computing.  Enterprises worldwide began to realize the dramatic cost benefits and potential business benefits of cloud computing.  As a result they gave serious consideration to private cloud implementations and are becoming more comfortable with moving some ESI to public Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) such as Amazon and Rackspace.  Microsoft launched Office360 to enable users to access the Microsoft Office Suite of products as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) removing the expensive and time consuming software update dance that we all dread.  And, late in 2010, Apple released the iCloud platform for consumer cloud storage and set the stage for literally millions of iPhone, iTouch and Mac users to begin storing their pictures and other personal data in the cloud.

For anyone involved in the world of Information Technology (IT) whether as a user or a technologist, 2011 was definitely an exciting year.  For those of us in the information governance and eDiscovery business, 2011 marked a turning point, both literally and conceptually, for the monitoring, indentification, collection, processing, review and production of electronic evidence.

Is it no longer just an interesting discussion at the local pub to talk about the eventuality of social media as a source of evidence.  There were already close to 1,000 cases in 2011 where the judge issued a written opinion that mentioned social media. Likewise, information governance and eDiscovery in the cloud is longer just an interesting breakout session at tradehows to fill up your ‘dance card”.  Harvesting ESI from the cloud for the purpose of eDiscovery was a real issue in 2011 and therefore anyone that is serious about eDiscovery from a process, legal and technology standpoint, had better start to pay attention.

Given all of this (and more that I have not even mentioned), 2012 is going to be a banner year for changes in information governance and eDiscovery.  Following are my predictions:

Information Governance and eDiscovery Will Move to the Cloud
As more and more ESI moves to the cloud, the requirement to harvest this ESI “from the cloud” will also continue to grow.  However, there will be a tremendous amount of confusion in regards to exactly what information governance and eDiscovery in the cloud means.  Most, if not all, of the seroius technology vendors will announce that they are cloud ready or work in the cloud.  However, in most cases, this will mean that they are using the same old legacy technology and harvesting data “from the cloud” and processing it the same old way they have been processing ESI and paper for years.  Some of these vendors will have their own data centers and offer up information governance and eDiscovery as as Service.   However, this is nothing new.  The real change that we will witness in 2012 will be virtual technology (not hardware based) that enables users to move information governance and eDiscovery solutions/platforms to the cloud ESI and collects it and processes it in the cloud where it resides.  Physical location will no longer be an issue.  Collection and moving massive amounts of data will no longer be an issue.  The salability of hardward solutions will no longer be an issue.  Staging information governance and eDiscovery respositories in third party service provider data centers will no longer be required.

Enterprises will be able to move virtual information governance and eDiscovery solutions around their networks and private clouds as required to collect and process ESI where it resides. Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) will provide information governance and eDiscovery solutions as part of their standard IaaS and PaaS technology stacks.   Early Case Assessment (ECA) is going to take on a whole new meaning.  This approach is a major paradigm shift in the entire concept of how information governance and eDiscovery should work.  2012 is going to be an exciting year for information governance and eDiscovery in the cloud.

Semantic Search will Go Mainstream
The mystical world of semantic search and natural language processing technology will finally go mainstream in 2012.  New Information governance and eDiscovery technology vendors will emerge that are utilizing this technology as the foundation of their offerings or have seamlessly integrated this technology into their platforms.  Litigators will begin to understand the value of semantic search, courts will begin to accept the results and users will begin to demand its use.  Before the end of 2012, the industry may even recognize the term “Lucene”.

Predictive Coding will Go Mainstream
Just like the mystical world of semantic search and natural language processing technology, Predictive Coding will also go mainstream in 2012.  New Information governance and eDiscovery technology vendors will emerge that have seamless integrated this technology into their platforms.  Litigators will begin to understand the value of Predictive Coding, courts will begin to accept the results and users will begin to demand its use.  Offshore coding will become less attractive as Predictive Coding will enable all but the very detailed review and tagging to be done automatically.

Informationn Governance and eDiscovery for Social Media Will be Required
Pushed by the ethical requirements for litigators to understand and utilize eDiscovery for social media and the practical requirements to ensure that all pertinent ESI is being collected and submitted, there will be a  major move by the courts and litigators in 2012 to ensure that social media evidence is being collected and submitted with an appropriate chain of custody and with access to metadata to ensure the validity of the evidence.  And, as a results, legacy ECA vendors will social media file types to their bag of tricks and numerous new Discovery tools for social media will be released in 2012.

End-to-End Information Governance and eDiscovery Solutions
As Early Case Assessemnt (ECA) vendors expand their product lines “right” into document review and case management and as document review platform expand their product lines “left” into ECA, the market is going to have a choice of more end-to-end information governance and eDiscovery solutions.  In addition, we will see the integration of data mapping, legal hold, semantic search, predictive coding, project management, workflow management and case management into these end-to-end solutions.

Litigator Will Become More Technology Savy
Out of both practical necessity and statute ordered requirements, litigators will become more technology savvy in 2012.  The days of the hands-off, don’t bother me with the technical details for eDiscovery litigator are quickly coming to a close. 

Information Governance and eDiscovery Pricing will Drop
The move to the cloud along with easily scalable virtual solutions offered up as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will enable a dramatic price decrease for information governance and eDiscovery in 2012.

eDiscovery will become a subset of Information Governance
As I have predicted in previous years, as eDiscovery moves to the enterprise, eDiscovery will become a subset of Information Governance in 2012.

In conclusion, 2012 is going to be a very exciting year in information governance and eDiscovery.  Enjoy the rest of 2011 and strap yourself in for a wild ride in 2012.

Background:

Information Governance and eDiscovery Trends for 2012
Source: original article
Author:
Categories: Electronic discovery, e-discovery, ediscovery

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In their latest survey, entitled “E-Discovery Market Trends: A View from the Legal Department,” Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) analysts Brian Babineau and Katey Wood analyze a number of interesting statistics and provide a range of insightful conclusions.  By surveying general counsel from large, mid-market (500-999 employees) and enterprise-class organizations in North America they were able to dive into a range of eDiscovery topics, including pain points, operational expenses and prioritizations on a go-forward basis.  Some are more intuitive than others, but in either case the results serve as good calibration metrics for those who endeavor to understand the corporate eDiscovery state of the nation.

“Most corporations are not tracking e-discovery spending…” In what may be the most notable finding of this ESG report, 60% of survey respondents claim that they did not track annual eDiscovery spending in 2010.  The authors correctly note that the eDiscovery process, “which can be highly unpredictable due to its project-by-project nature to begin with, has historically been outsourced to service providers charging at variable rates and often billed back to companies via their law firms.”  Despite the significant challenges of tracking eDiscovery spending, it’s nevertheless irresponsible for organizations to keep their heads in the sand regarding such a significant operational expense.

As the old saw goes, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure,” so it’s almost inconceivable to think that so many organizations aren’t tracking such a significant expense category.  For organizations who want to create a repeatable business process, as opposed to the fire-drill chaos that is typically associated with eDiscovery, it’s vitally important to accurately capture core eDiscovery metrics.  For starters, it’s useful to understand basic collection parameters, such as of the typical numbers of key custodians, average data volumes per custodian, data expansion rates, de-duplication statistics, etc.  Once these metrics are in place, it then becomes possible to manage the process and reduce costs.

Katey went on to expound in an exclusive quote for EDD 2.0:

“E-discovery can be managed as a strategic business process with an understanding of costs, performance and outcomes. When there’s no basis for reporting or comparison, it’s pin the tail on the donkey.  Corporate litigants won’t ever know they’re getting their money’s worth if they don’t even know what they’re spending.”

“E-Discovery accuracy/efficiency isn’t being measured, in large part.” Similar to the failure to measure eDiscovery costs, a full two thirds of GCs (67%) aren’t tracking the “efficiency and/or accuracy of e-discovery document review.” Until corporate counsel can link expectations of competency/efficiency with oversight and performance metrics, outside law firms will likely avoid having their feet held to the fire.  This passive stance makes transparency and process improvement difficult at best.  Additionally, this model of having expectations for efficiency, with low or no accountability, doesn’t bode well for the quick adoption of enabling technologies like predictive coding, since the driver has to inherently be the need/desire for increased efficiency (which axiomatically equals lower law firm review bills).

“Corporate information governance and litigation readiness (especially defensible deletion) are a priority, but not yet a reality.” From an internal prioritization perspective, more than two thirds (69%) of respondents identified their desire to expire/delete data more consistently, “thereby limiting unnecessary data retention for future litigation requests.”  Savvy enterprises correctly recognized the “multi-prong threat of unregulated data retention: the large amounts of irrelevant data ultimately produced for legal review, the greater difficulty of hanging onto potentially litigious documents past their required retention periods.”

This finding is very encouraging, and it ties into the upward momentum the industry is seeing regarding information governance generally – particularly linking the reactive (right) side of the EDRM with the logically connected and proactive (left) side of the EDRM.  As a good first step it’s critical to see organizations now associating good information governance hygiene with lower costs and better eDiscovery response times.  The ESG finding also triangulates with results from the recent Information Retention and eDiscovery Survey, which found that companies having good information governance hygiene were often able to respond much faster and more successfully to an eDiscovery/investigation requests, often suffering fewer negative consequences.

The only downside to the positive information governance trend, as reported by the survey, was that,

“while there are great benefits to defensible deletion, internal initiatives for implementing it too often are stymied by difficulty in obtaining cross functional consensus and authorization, particularly as it touches so many other critical processes like regulatory compliance and legal hold.”

“Legal hold processes are still very manual.” Another similar question revealed that many companies are attempting to get their information governance house in order, but are still in the very early stages.  When asked about their  current legal hold notification and tracking process, a whopping 69% of organizations said that they are using a “manual process performed by internal staff using e-mail and spreadsheets, etc.”  And, another 6% said they either had no formal process or tracking mechanism.

Given the risks attendant to flaws in the preservation process this area is ripe for improvement.  The good news is that 54% of survey respondents are intending to improve their legal hold process, with 25% planning improvement within the next 12 months.  This is a healthy acknowledgement that there is risk, and with a modicum of investment (time, personnel, procedures, and technology) the legal hold area can be brought up to current best practices.

The ESG survey is a welcome temperature gauge into the state of corporate legal departments.  It notes, in conclusion, “with the staggering growth, diversity and dispersion of data, the pain e-discovery is currently causing large and serial litigants are only a symptom of the larger problem of unwieldy and under-developed information management affecting all businesses.”  With data insights from the ESG survey, it’s becoming clear that foundational information governance elements (like deploying auditable legal hold procedures, tracking eDiscovery spending, updating data maps, etc.) are desperately needed by the many organizations that want to turn eDiscovery into a repeatable business process.  The good news is that many of these organization have improvements in mind for the next 12 months, and the challenge will be to make sure these proactive projects maintain the same level of organizational urgency that it often present for more reactive tasks.

Background:

Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)’s Legal Trends Survey Reveals Alarming Inattention to eDiscovery Spending
Source: original article
Author: Dean Gonsowski
Categories: Electronic discovery, e-discovery, ediscovery

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Fulbright & Jaworski has conducted their Litigation Trends survey for nearly the past decade and the results are always interesting since they tend to capture the mindset of inside counsel and litigators as they anticipate the upcoming year.  In their 8th Annual Litigation Trends Survey, Fulbright noted that 92% of U.S. respondents predict that litigation will either increase or stay the same in the upcoming year.  This trend bodes well for players in the litigation services and eDiscovery sectors, and confirms the counter cyclical nature of the industry.  Breaking down the perceived increases across industry verticals, the Survey noted that the biggest anticipated jumps were in the technology, financial services, healthcare and insurance sectors.  Meanwhile energy (the leading sector from the prior year) was one of the few that predicted a decrease.

Going behind the scenes, there were a number of factors that caused respondents to predict litigation increases.  First and foremost, respondents indicated that “stricter regulation was the number one reason” for the increases, particularly with insurance, financial services, health care and retail sectors.  These concerns around regulatory compliance have been increasingly keeping GCs and corporate boards awake as the governance climate continues to heat up.  This regulation driver showed a demonstrable increase with 46% of all respondents having retained outside counsel to assist with regulatory proceedings, up from 37% in the prior year.  The Survey noted that U.S. companies facing a regulatory investigation were most likely to be under pressure from the DOJ (27%), State Attorney General (24%), OSHA (18%), the EPA (16%) and U.S. Attorney (13%).  Also on the regulatory front, U.S. respondents have increasingly begun to recognize the potential jurisdictional reach of the U.K. Bribery Act, with 25% of U.S. companies stating that they have already conducted a review of existing procedures in preparation for implementation.

In addition to managing risk, most in-house counsel are keenly concerned with controlling litigation costs.  The good news here is that associated costs are predicted to be generally flat.  Yet, eDiscovery remained the largest category targeted for increased spending, with 18% of respondents making this their top priority.  Interestingly, though, large enterprises seem to have been doing a good job of getting eDiscovery expenses under control (likely by taking expensive elements of the EDRM in-house), with these expenses declining among the largest companies, from 42% last year to 24% this year.

The Survey noted that the use of cloud computing has gained speed, with 34% of all public companies using the cloud.  And yet, only 40% of those companies using cloud computing have had “to preserve and/or collect data from the cloud in connection with actual or threatened litigation, disputes or investigations.”  This number appears curiously light, and it should definitely rise during the upcoming year as the plaintiff’s bar gets more savvy about this relatively new source of responsive electronically stored information (ESI).

On the narrower eDiscovery front, the Survey honed in on newer issues like cooperation.  Here, the Survey noted that this Sedona-sponsored concept still hasn’t completely taken hold, with nearly 40% of all respondents claiming that “their company has not made the effort to be more transparent or cooperative” due to a litigation strategy of “defending on all fronts.”  This area appears particularly muddled, with one third saying their previous attempts haven’t been reciprocated and another quarter feeling that their company was already transparent.

All in all,  the 2011 Fulbright Litigation Trends Survey notes trends that appear to be largely in line with the primary drivers of (1) managing risk and (2) lowering litigation costs.  On the risk side, compliance with an increasingly complex regulatory environment is offsetting any potential lull in the litigation environment.  And, on the cost side, eDiscovery continues to be a hot button issue, particularly with the relatively new challenges associated with ESI distributed on social media, cloud computing and mobile sources.

Background:

Fulbright’s 2011 Litigation Trends Report Predicts a Constant Litigation Pace and a Swell of Regulatory Investigations
Source: original article
Author: Dean Gonsowski
Categories: Electronic discovery, e-discovery, ediscovery

This e-discovery news is syndicated from e-discovery websites and blogs that make their feed available via RSS. Contact us to have your RSS feed added or removed.

Rentokil, a pest control company that operates in 46 countries and has over 30,000 employees, became the largest organization to begin using Google Apps last October.

According to Wikipedia.com, “Google Apps is a service from Google for using custom domain names with several Google products. It features several Web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites.”

Rentokil had over 40 e-mail systems including open source solutions and Microsoft Exchange. This caused huge problems with simple internal communication between employees. Basically, Google Apps, considered Software as a Service (SaaS), is going to allow Rentokil, and thousands of other organizations, to streamline and normalize its applications and most likely reduce overall IT costs.

SaaS is here and it’s not going anywhere. In fact, it makes perfect sense. Why would a company invest millions in infrastructure and licensing for software that it can affordably rent? For some companies it makes sense to support and deploy licensed software. The main one I can think of is that the software may not be offered as a Saas solution, yet (emphasis on yet). Another objection may be security. However, as time passes, that argument and others like it will become less of a concern or hurdle to organizations as they strive to cut costs.

What does a pest control company choosing Google Apps have to do with eDiscovery?

When I come across stories like this I think about the impact on eDiscovery, good or bad.

SaaS is akin to any new technology or service that I come across. As an eDiscovery practitioner I need to study it.

I need to know how it works. I need to know how the data is stored and where it’s stored.

I need to know if artifacts are left on a local hard drive.

I need to know the proper way to preserve the data.

I need to treat it like a frog in 10th grade Biology class.

More importantly, I need to ask the proper questions when interviewing IT personnel or persons most knowledgeable about a company’s software use. The first question should be – Does the company use SaaS or similar applications? If the answer is yes, the list of questions can go on and on.

FTP me up, Scotty!

Another trend is third party FTP services.  FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and it is typically used by organizations to transfer large files that don’t normally fit into an email.  Some services allow a user to “attach a file” to an e-mail using an Outlook plug-in and instead of the large file being sent as an attachment, a link is sent in its place.  A user can also choose to send a file using Internet Explorer or another browser.   The recipient receives an e-mail notifying them that a file is ready to be downloaded after they click on the hyperlink. After a certain period of time, the file is purged from the site and is no longer available via a hyperlink.

Again, this great service can pose significant challenges for anyone dealing with ESI. What if someone sent a file that one believes is integral to the matter, but it’s no longer available on the FTP site, nor can it be located on the sender’s or recipient’s computer? After all efforts have been exhausted to find the file have come up short, is it possible to go after the SaaS provider and request backup tapes be restored? If so, what is the cost associated with that effort? Is an order from the court necessary? I certainly pity the SaaS providers…

If your job requires you to deal with ESI then you need to be hip to what’s new or become fast friends with an eDiscovery aficionado.

Trends can become the norm quickly.

As a lawyer, paralegal, eDiscovery practitioner or anyone dealing with eDiscovery, one must be aware of the trends or find oneself wearing platform shoes or worse, having a hairdo they will later regret.

Background:

RENTOKIL or RentToUse – FTP (File Transfer Protocol), SaaS (Software as a Service), and other eDiscovery trends
Source: original article
Author: d4admin
Categories: Electronic discovery, e-discovery, ediscovery

This e-discovery news is syndicated from e-discovery websites and blogs that make their feed available via RSS. Contact us to have your RSS feed added or removed.

Each year, Clearwell predicts what’s next for e-Discovery. It’s a conversation we always look forward to as it presents an opportunity to look back at the past year and look ahead to next year.

Background:

The Top 5 Trends for e-Discovery in 2011
Source: original article
Author:
Categories: Electronic discovery, e-discovery, ediscovery

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Clearwell Systems, an e-discovery software provider, announced the extension of its transparent search technology to concept searching, which is now included in the Clearwell E-Discovery Platform.

Background:

LegalTech New York 2011 Wrap-Up: Products, Trends, and More
Source: original article
Author:
Categories: Electronic discovery, e-discovery, ediscovery

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I guess that the my “eDiscovery Trends and Predictions” have officially become an annual post when my 8 year daughter announces that Daddy is in his office again this holiday season writing about some boring computer and legal stuff that isn’t going to happen until next year.

So, without further ado, my eDiscovery Trends and Predictions for 2011 are as follows:

Further Consolidation of the eDiscovery Industry:  2010 was the year that the larger players in the eDiscovery market continued to acquire the smaller players.  Further, major Information technology providers began to realize that ediscovery was going to be the “next big thing” and therefore they began to figure out which technologies, service providers and vendors they were going to acquire.   We will see more of the same in 2011.

eDiscovery in Social Media will Mature:  Social Media in the form of popular applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Texting and other portable iPhone and Android type applications crossed the threshold of widespread use in 2010.  2011 will be the year that eDiscovery “begins” to catch up and integrates Social Media into collection technology and eDiscovery best practices.  Further, the courts will also begin to recognize the serious potential of electronic “smoking gun” evidence being communicated and housed in Social Media.  Please note that the court system has matured at an alarming rate in regards to the impact of social media.  However, there are still way too many in positions of power that still believe that Facebook and Twitter are something that their 13 year granddaughters use and not a place that actual serious evidence may reside.

The Proportionality Debate will Continue:  As the amount of Electronically Stored Information (ESI) has continued to increase at an accelerating rate, the cost of eDiscovery has had a chilling effect on access to the legal system.  More simply stated, in many cases the common man cannot afford the cost of litigation.  As such, proportionality in eDiscovery has become a hot topic of debate in regards to reducing the overall cost of litigation.  I believe that everyone should have equal access to the court systems.  However, I don’t believe that this should be achieved by restricting eDiscovery.  Technology is progressing at such an accelerating rate that the over cost of finding, collecting and analyzing all potentially pertinent data should continue to decrease. Therefore, I predict that in 2011, the Proportionality Debate will shift to a discussion about which technologies should be more main stream as opposed to “how much data is enough” to seem like we conducted a fair review of the evidence.

Predictive Coding will Emerge as More Mainstream: As an example of a technology that could have an effect on the Proportionality Debate, I predict that Predictive Coding or Categorization will emerge in 2011 as more mainstream.   The sometimes passionate debate will continue to rage on in regards to the viability of this technology and some will continue to argue that it just to difficult to understand how it works.  However, in the end, the algorithms are actually not that difficult to understand and the potential to reduce the overall cost of eDiscovery are so dramatic that it is a trend that cannot and will not be denied any longer.

eDiscovery will move to the Enterprise: This is a carry over from both 2009 and 2010.  However, it is a very important paradigm shift that will continue to re-defining the eDiscovery market in 2011 and therefore will continue to have a dramatic impact on vendors, service providers, consultants and the Information Technology (IT) departments of the enterprises that are taking on the eDiscovery task.

eDiscovery in the Cloud:  It will come as no surprise that I am going to predict that 2011 will see further migration of eDiscovery technology to the Cloud.  Stay tuned to my Blog for further developments and updates on this topic.

Additional Single Source End-to-end eDiscovery Offerings: It will also some as no surprise that I am going to predict that 2011 will see additional Single Source End-to-end eDiscovery platforms.  The market is beginning to realize that solutions that address a single component/requirement of the EDRM are too restricting and moving data between them or trying to integrate them is just too difficult and expensive.   Therefore, in 2011, I predict that we will see more vendors taking on the task of integration and offering Single Source End-to-end eDiscovery platforms in the form of appliances and in the Cloud.

eDiscovery Workflow:  Application workflow and process workflow has been an accepted component of the enterprise for many years.  Therefore, as eDiscovery moves to the Enterprise and becomes the responsibility of the IT department, eDiscovery workflow will emerge as a required component.

Self Provisioning eDiscovery:  As eDiscovery moves to the Cloud and into the Enterprise in 2011, I predict that the concept of flexible self provisioning will emerge as an end-user requirement.   Stay tuned to my blog in 2011 for additional thoughts and details on this topic.

Disruptive Pricing Models will Emerge in 2011:  The cost of eDiscovery is still way too high and much of the costs are still being driven by legacy pricing models that reward vendors and service providers based on the amount of data that is processed.  2010 saw some providers starting to buck this trend.  I predict that in 2011 the market is going to see some very disruptive pricing models that are finally going to bring eDiscovery costs in line with other like information technology processing costs.

eDiscovery will Become Part of GRC:  You have all heard me talk about this emerging trend over the past several years.  And therefore, I predict that in 2011 the enterprise will continue to understand that eDiscovery is actually just part of the larger requirement to provide systems and support for Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC).

I could continue my list.  However, it is the holidays and my 8 year wants to play “Just Dance 2”.  So, I hope that everyone enjoys my list of eDiscovery Trends and Predictions for 2011 and has a very a Happy New Year.

Background:

eDiscovery Trends and Predictions for 2011
Source: original article
Author:
Categories: Electronic discovery, e-discovery, ediscovery

This e-discovery news is syndicated from e-discovery websites and blogs that make their feed available via RSS. Contact us to have your RSS feed added or removed.

As we approach a new year, corporations continue to battle the rising cost of electronic discovery for litigation, internal investigations, and regulatory inquiries. This web seminar will explore how e-discovery processes, resources, and technology will change based on highly anticipated shifts in corporate e-discovery practices, data systems, and the law.

Join Ron Hedges, e-discovery special master, arbitrator, mediator, and former U.S. Magistrate Judge in the District of New Jersey and Dean Gonsowski, Esq., VP of E-Discovery Services for Clearwell Systems as they discuss their predictions for the five most important corporate e-discovery trends to watch for in 2011.

Background:

Top 5 Corporate E-Discovery Trends in 2011, Nov. 18, 2010, 10:00AM PST Online Webinar
Source: original article
Author:
Categories: Electronic discovery, e-discovery, ediscovery

This e-discovery news is syndicated from e-discovery websites and blogs that make their feed available via RSS. Contact us to have your RSS feed added or removed.

The part of Fulbright’s Litigation Trends Survey related to e-discovery is helpful for those who want to understand corporate law department’s current approaches to e-discovery, their preparedness, and their progress towards adapting to e-discovery law.

You can download Fulbright’s Litigation Trends Survey here (by filling out the form) or download previous annual trends reports here.

This is the fifth year Fulbright has polled corporate law departments in the U.S. and U.K. on the state of global litigation. The 2008 survey drew input from 358 in-house counsel on both sides of the Atlantic, including 251 U.S. respondents. The survey, initially launched by Fulbright in 2004, is the largest canvas of corporate counsel on litigation issues and trends.

E-Discovery is included in the Trends Survey.

For e-discovery, the report included a number of findings. Fulbright’s press release noted this:

Of course, e-discovery and electronically stored information remain an important part of the litigation process, as a normal part of discovery and document production. And it appears that some jurisdictions may still lag behind on dealing with electronic discovery. Twelve percent of companies said they had been before a court or other litigation tribunal ill-equipped to deal with complex electronic data discovery. For financial services and technology firms, which have mounds of e-files and other electronically stored data, 19% and 18%, respectively, reported facing courts and tribunals not up to the challenge.

Survey Details

Fulbright explains more details about the report for those who are interested in how the survey was conducted:

The 2008 Fulbright & Jaworski Litigation Trends Survey was conducted from May 22 through July 18 by Greenwood Associates, a business research firm in Houston that has produced previous editions of the report. The survey, launched by Fulbright in 2004, is the largest polling of corporate counsel on litigation issues and concerns. This year’s Trends Survey canvassed 358 in-house counsel in the U.S. and U.K. More than two-thirds identified themselves as either general counsel or deputy general counsel with 7% holding title of senior counsel, 10% associate general counsel, and 15% staff counsel.

The 2008 survey asks in-house counsel to consider the types of cases they fear most, as well as their attitudes on outside counsel, litigation costs and staffing, arbitration and regulatory issues, and projections for the future. Most of the respondents identify themselves as principal general counsel and senior counsel.

Spanning 10 industry groups—from financial services to energy, manufacturing, health care, retail, real estate, insurance, education, and technology and telecommunications—companies were spread across all regions of the country and were well represented by size: 22% report revenues under $100 million, while 39% have sales of between $100 million and $999 million, and another 39% at $1 billion and above. Forty-four percent of companies are publicly held (including 58% on the NYSE) and 57% maintain at least one foreign office, with 19% boasting locations in more than 20 countries worldwide.

For a related trends survey, see Kroll Ontrack’s 2008 Electronic Discovery Trends Survey or this discussion on e-discovery trends in the forum.

The report is an international survey of in-house counsel and their practices for managing electronically stored information (ESI) in litigation and internal investigations. The report also separates the findings between the United States and United Kingdom.

The report notes that people are becoming more aware of e-discovery and more states are enacting laws to govern e-discovery.

The report notes a number of interesting results. For example:

United States companies spent an average of $437,000 on e-discovery, which includes planning and practice management. Compare that to U.K companies that spent an average of £208,000 on e-discovery.

You can obtain a copy of Kroll Ontrack’s 16-page Second Annual ESI Trends Report by filling out the form here: 2008 ESI Trends Report.

The 2007 version of the ESI Trends Report is available here: 2007 ESI Trends Report.